


tomorrow is another day

by roseandthorns28



Series: convalescence [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Depression, Gen, Mentions of past abuse, Recovery, Suicidal thoughts/tendencies, post-season 4 finale
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-21
Updated: 2016-11-04
Packaged: 2018-03-18 20:54:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 3,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3583650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roseandthorns28/pseuds/roseandthorns28
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Derek decides to leave on a tuesday; </p><p>after the dust settles, he packs his bags and decides to leave.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Decisions and goodbyes

The sun is rising by the time Derek prepares to leave. The loft is lit up with the muted sunlight that filters in through the windows. He takes one last lingering look at it then slides the door in place, pocketing the spare key that he has, the main being with Stiles. He throws the duffel bag across the passenger seat and starts driving without any concrete destination in mind. However, instinct guides him and before he know it, he’s taking the same route he and Laura did all those years ago. Thinking about her still makes his heart constrict. She was his Alpha, his only pack for years before Beacon Hills screwed it all up for him. Laura thought that place was toxic. He believed her but somehow, toxic is not the word that he associates with Beacon Hills. Suddenly, it’s become home. New York now seems like a chapter in someone else’s history. And to some extent, it is. He’s not that person anymore. Nor does he want to be.

There was no chronological order or list of goodbyes to go through. It's messy and awkward but when is anything in his life not. He hadn’t really planned on a big affair- god knows, he’s not getting a farewell party. He’s not sure he deserves it. He’s been the cause of problems more often than the solution no matter how hard he tries. 

It is night fall by the time he stops at a gas station, refilling the tank and grabbing something to eat from the preserved foods section. It tastes disgusting but he really doesn’t want to stop at an establishment. He just wants to get away, mindlessly drive until he can’t anymore. Standing next to the gas pump, under the flickering light of the streetlamp, he feels untethered. Not exactly free but not weighed down with responsibility either. He wasn’t meant to be an Alpha. He’s glad he’s not anymore.

It takes him three days, three days of continuous driving with breaks only for sleeping in the car or filing his stomach at diners of questionable repute, to try and make up his mind about where he is going. Actually, it takes three days and a text from Scott to get him start thinking about the end of the road. It’s nothing great, just a simple status update he had asked for. It jars him though, the fact that it has been three days and he has nowhere to go. Somehow, that’s not as freeing as he thought it would be. Maybe it is for some, but as a wolf- Alpha or not, his first instinct is pack. And he has none. It pains him a little, being a drifting omega for the first time in his life. At the next diner he stops at, he scrolls through his contact list on his old phone that he had stashed in a corner pocket of the duffel. He doesn’t want to reconnect with the people he used to know, but he doesn’t want to be cut off anymore either. 

 


	2. New York

Derek ends up in New York.

He's already more than halfway there and all he needs to do is make a phone call from Des Moines to the Alpha of the Michelleni pack to inform them of his arrival. Which doesn't mean that there would be a red carpet welcome for him, just that when he gets there, he wouldn't be immediately captured and dragged to the alpha as an invading omega. And, seeing as he isn't sure what the pack heard of his time in Beacon Hills, and since none of what happened shines a particularly good light on him, he thinks it wise to inform them. When he gets off the phone with Maria, he has an appointment with their alpha set for the moment he arrives. The fact that they're asking him to meet, and so quickly, means that at least some news of Beacon Hills and his series of utter failures made it back to them. 

When he gets to New York, he drives straight to Cobble Hill, stopping only when he reaches the Michelleni pack house, the seat of the alpha, his mate and his immediate family. The rest of the pack is distributed around New York. Which is not to say that they are the only werewolves in the city. The Michelleni pack has always been welcoming of other weres as long as they abide by the peaceful ways of the pack and don't bring trouble to their front door. 

Climbing up the few steps to the front door, Derek feels like the embodiment of trouble. He squares his shoulders and rings the bell, a perfunctory courtesy since everyone in the house heard him coming a mile away. 

Maria, the eldest daughter and next in line for alpha, lets him in and by the small but genuine smile she gives him, Derek gathers that maybe the pack hasn't condemned him yet. 

He exits the house after four hours, emotionally exhausted, and a little stunned.

To say that the meeting went well would be an understatement. He now has been accepted back into the city, as pack-adjacent. He has their protection, their friendship without having to really submit to the alpha, considering he follows their stipulations. The conditions they had laid out made Derek want to take his acquiescence back and just ask for a guilty verdict instead. He's sure a round of wolfsbane bullets would have been less painful than what he's required to do to prove that his good faith. 

But what's done is done. At least they hadn't asked him to move in with them, so they could keep an eye on him. 

Derek gets in the car and drives to the one place he had dreaded going more than the headquarters of the pack. He would take a hundred such interrogations over having to navigate the familiar streets of his neighbourhood, pass by the places where the ghost of his sister still lingers, walk into the apartment that probably still carries her imprint. 

Unfortunately for him, he has no other place to go, and the old address is a Michelleni approved place. And, if he is being honest with himself, he is tired. Tired of running. 

 

Derek lets himself into the dusty old apartment that he and Laura once shared, the key for which was buried in his duffel under other knick knacks from his earlier life. The inside of the apartment presents the tableau of a life kept on pause.

He hadn't thought that he would move to Beacon Hills permanently when he left. However, as soon as he found Laura's body, it became apparent that he wouldn't be returning any time soon. So, he had paid for the rest of the year in advance; having a sizeable bank account due to his family's legacy as well as the insurance money, it wasn't that big a dent in his savings. When things never really settled down, he just kept making the post dated payments. He could never really bring himself to cancel the lease, and at the time, it had been impossible for him to actually go back to New York to sort out his affairs. Constant supernatural threat in Beacon Hills notwithstanding. 

So, when he steps inside what once was his and his alpha's home, he smells nothing but age and dust and a thousand reminders of his sister. 

There are the pictures stuck to the wall with sticky tack, the clothes flung all over the place (a habit he had never been able to talk Laura out of), the IKEA furniture it took them two days and a million fights to assemble, her books, her grocery list tacked onto the fridge with yoghurt underlined in bold, the list is unending. His eyes roam all over the place taking it in. The closest thing of hers is her sweat shirt, draped over the back of one of the chairs in their kitchen-cum-dining room-cum-living room. He walks towards it, snatches it up and brings it to his nose. 

Her scent still lingers, probably because she never really washed it. It's been years since he has smelled her, albeit sweaty, scent. 

Derek collapses to his knees, burying his face in the shirt as he breaks down, loud sobs wracking his frame, his cries muffled by the fabric. 

For the first time since he left this apartment all those years ago, since he went to track his sister, his alpha down, Derek lets himself grieve.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if anyone's following this, i'm sorry, this is semi-abandoned since i'm not following season 5 at all nor am i heavily into teen wolf at the moment. but derek's really close to my heart and i'll try and continue this story whenever i can. 
> 
> also, for now.. and possibly for a long time, this will be gen and focused solely on derek and his recovery. 
> 
> also also, i have never been to the us, nor have any knowledge of it. everything comes out of wikipedia and other internet sources. lemme know if i need to change something.


	3. Clean

Derek loses track of time, doesn't know how long he's been kneeling on the floor, sobbing into his sister's dirty sweat shirt. 

 

When the tears subside, he takes a few deep breaths and gets up, hand still clutching the shirt. He looks down at it, then balls it up and walks over to the shared bathroom. His thumb caresses the now soggy fabric before he steels himself and throws the shirt into the laundry hamper. 

 

After he's washed all evidence of his break down away, he looks up in the mirror, into the eyes of a man so different than the one who left this place. He can't deny that he's changed, he's different, stronger, more mature. He can feel the change in him, not just from all those years ago, but also from what he was when he first entered this place, just a few minutes...hours...ago.

 

He feels better, a little more ready to face the task ahead. 

 

He sets his jaw and walks out, picks up the house keys, his phone and wallet. He has a lot to do. 

 

Derek returns an hour later, laden with cleaning supplies and enough groceries to last him a week. He lets the groceries sit on the table as he unpacks the cleaning gear. He doesn’t really want to put away the groceries when he can see the layers of dust gathered on the shelves. He strips down to his boxers and starts the grueling process of cleaning the entire apartment of the grime and the dust build up that has accumulated over the years.

 

He has to stop in between, taking breaks not only due to exhaustion but also because he keeps finding things that trigger memories of Laura, of their time spent together, even of their pack before.... before the fire. 

 

It's funny, Derek thinks, how there are more things in an apartment in New York that remind him of his family than in the actual town, the actual house he used to live in. 

 

Maybe it's because he hadn't given himself enough time to think about all that. God knows he tried to actively suppress everything, even when his past kept rising like the fucking undead. 

Whatever. He should leave the psychoanalysis to the professionals. 

 

So, every time he stutters in the process, a phantom from the past rising before his eyes, Derek picks himself up and resumes his task.

 

By the time he is done, he is dirty and bone tired but the place has been scrubbed to an inch of its life.

 

He looks around and nods to himself in satisfaction before walking into the shared bathroom, or well now **his** bathroom, to try to scrub away the years like he did with the appartment. 

 

 

 

Derek emerges from the bathroom in a cloud of steam naked as the day he was born and feeling miles better. He dresses in the most comfortable clothes and begins putting away the groceries. His stomach growls, reminding him that it's been ages since he last ate. He mechanically makes himself a sandwich, pours himself a glass of juice and breaks out the nice cutlery. After hunger, sleep. It's at six in the evening having just woken up, when Derek is standing at the window and looking at the abysmal view of the alley between two buildings with a mug of hot coffee, that the question strikes him.

 

  
_What now?_  

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you to anyone who's expressed interest. your kudos are my life. 
> 
> again, this is unbeta'd and very sporadically updated. altho I do now have a plan for how I want the story to go so, yay me. 
> 
> also, again I know nothing of new york/ USA and any inconsistencies should be either ignored or brought to my attention, thanks.


	4. What now?

The question lingers in his mind for the longest time. 

 

_What now?_

_"Well, that's what I'm here to help you with," Dr. Gupta says._

_"I don't-" he stops himself from saying 'I don't need your help' as he's sure everything he says is going back to the Michelleni pack. "I don't know where to start." He admits after a while._

_"Depends on your priorities. Where do you want to start?"_

_Derek has a lot of answers but most of them are things that he's not sure he can help. Like his family, a pack, St-_ no. 

_"I need... a job.A job I actually like."_

_Dr. Gupta smiles. "Okay, then start there."_

 

Derek takes the first job he finds. After some deliberation, he realised that to get to the elusive "job he actually liked", he'll have to start somewhere- somewhere small and actually get a job first while he figured out what it was he actually wanted to do. 

The job is security in a club near the apartment. It had sprung up sometime in the past few years of Derek's absence. It's not a very respectful place, kind of shady, as the manager takes one look at  him and likes him for the job of a bouncer. 

His life falls into something of a routine: Get up, eat, shower, work out, kill time, get ready for work, crash in the wee hours of the morning. 

The mindless work of carding underage kids, breaking up drunken fights, making sure the fall-down-drunk women get home okay starts to grate on his nerves. The only reason he hasn't walked out is because of the conditions of him staying in New York. Which include a stable job. 

 

The following year passes by in a series of firsts. 

 

First meeting with Dr. Gupta as stipulated by his probation. 

First pack dinner, courtesy of Maria's invitation. 

First call to Cora and the realisation that in his grief about his older sister, he'd overlooked his younger. 

First serious job hunt that proves to him just out of touch he is with everything. 

First google search for continuing education or vocational college options in the area.

First time he touches himself without guilt after the cluster fuck that was Kate. 

First call to Stiles, on his birthday. It goes unanswered. 

First discussion with Dr. Gupta about his future. 

First time Cora visits him in the apartment and the first time they actually  _talk_. 

First week of classes of the career advancement course in translation from NYU. At least his stupid business degree comes in handy since he doesn't have to sit with  _freshmen_. He's had enough of snarky teenagers to last him a lifetime. 

First discussion of hobbies that leaves Derek floundering to answer with anything other than "reading" and "ruminating on the multitude of deaths caused by his hand." 

First time he goes into a bar since a very long time. 

First time he gets hit on and doesn't feel the familiar tightening of his shoulders and the bile rise up in his throat.   
  
First time he smiles at people without it being fake, a mask used as a social lubricant.  
  
First time he spends an entire week without looking over his shoulder.   
  
First time he can fucking _breathe_ without being afraid that it's gonna come back and bite him in the ass.


	5. Isaac

It sneaks up on him, the date. It's been a year since he came back to New York. 

However, this is nothing on the other dates that have snuck up on him.   
  
The anniversary of the fire, Laura's death, Erica, Boyd, birthdays of his pack, his parent's anniversary. He mourns for them all, the family- the pack- the lost. Some he handles well- as well as he can with the good doctor's help-, others, well the less said about the rambling voice mail he left on Isaac's disconnected number while drunk off his ass on wolfsbane infused alcohol the better. 

Out of his mistakes, his treatment of Isaac and how he pushed him away, that is the thing that haunts him the most. Especially since he'd promised himself he'd never let anyone hurt the scared little boy he'd found in the grave. However, he hadn't accounted for himself. And in trying to protect his beta from himself, Derek had inadvertently hurt him more. 

He can still see the cowering figure against the beam of his loft, glass shards raining down on him.   
  
But there's nothing he can do now, right? 

_Why do you say that?_

That's easy. Isaac wants nothing to do with him, obviously. Why would he. And, it's not like he can turn back time. 

_Be that as it may, a fresh start is always possible._

How would Derek even contact him? Isaac's in France. It's better if he stays away. He's gotten a fresh start.

_There are always two sides to a story. Two people in a relationship. Catharsis is not just a word psychologists made up._

I don't know how to.... I don't know what I should do.

_If you really want it, you'll find a way. You're resourceful, Derek._  

 

It takes him a month of deliberation but Derek texts Scott. After a few days of radio silence where he believes Scott is asking Isaac for permission- Derek doesn't begrudge him that, at least it wasn't an outright no- he receives a Skype ID.

Derek logs into his old address, the one that still has that stupid profile picture of himself that Laura took and he never changed back. He looks like a douchebag ( _fuckboy_ , as the kids these days call it) with a snapback pulled down to his eyes but getting a good picture when your eyes look like headlights as soon as the camera flashes is hard enough.  

He doesn't change it. 

Instead, he texts a paltry, "I'm sorry." After a second, "For everything" because there's so much to apologise for. 

Five minutes later, Isaac's icon comes online and he receives a video call. He accepts.

It becomes a thing with them, sporadic Skype sessions. There's a lot of awkwardness and bitterness on both sides, try as he might, Isaac's departure and preference of Scott over him still feels like abandonment. Slowly though, it disappears and their equation feels more grounded- loads better than the desperate, weak bond they had as Alpha and beta. 

There's been healing and growing up on both sides, Derek feels, as evidenced by the first time Isaac jokingly, but a little hesitantly brings up hitting on Cora and Derek laughs instead of glaring. "She'll eat you alive." He jokes, surprising both himself and Isaac with his lack of hostility. Something breaks loose and eases between them from then on.  


End file.
